EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

Azim Premji University’s educational programmes aim to prepare graduates with great competence, integrity and social commitment. These qualities are the necessary foundation for flourishing and a life of informed and ethical action. The above mission obviously requires us to respond to the question, “What is good Education?”.

It is well established that Education is an important contributor to livelihood and economic opportunity. However, it also has a larger and equally important role as a key constituent of human development and flourishing. This is a view that we share and wish to emphasize.

Understanding and action

Students will be helped to achieve the capacity for understanding and action appropriate to their potential. The learning programmes of the University will therefore focus on building knowledge, critical reflection, values and skill that underpin such capacity. It is in questioning established understandings and developing new perspectives based on rigorous research and dialogue that this intent is brought to fruition. We recognise that academic freedom and integrity are indispensable for this. Faculty and students will be part of a community that actualizes this vision in the light of the University’s values and goals.

A social purpose

The above emphasis is complemented by the University’s awareness of its social purpose. The University will strive to develop a deep understanding of the role of education in creating awareness of moral and ethical issues in debates on development and social policy. This awareness will be reflected in the design of the University’s curriculum and research priorities. The University will explore and locate its learning and research programmes squarely in a deep and nuanced understanding of India’s political and cultural contexts and tremendous diversity.

The learning individual

The third and equally central concern of the University’s educational philosophy is with the learning individual. Faculty and students are part of this community of learners. One of the central preoccupations of Education is its own impact on attitudes, values and the capacity for self-understanding. This capacity is not a product only of intellectual learning. It is a result also of the development of sensitivity and emotional maturity that sparks a life-long process of inquiry. Seen this way, education is a journey of awakening that enhances and supports the individual’s ability to discover well-being and to contribute to society. An environment that values learning in this manner has to be designed to explore the nature of “learning for life” and actively promote caring relationships that reach beyond the academic curriculum.

The intellectual storehouse that are the students and the faculty. Something we could tap into any time and come out satisfied and stimulated.

R. Sridhar Rao
M.A. in Development I Class of 2014

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It was in Gudalur, an amazing landscape in the Nilgiri district of Tamil Nadu, that I did my two week field immersion. The exposure to the vast share of unseen indigenous knowledge and culture of the Adivasi community in Gudalur was an exciting experience.